He went to the railroad station. He would escape from the hateful town where there was nothing but perfidy and vice. He called up the hotel to bid Sheila a bitter farewell. Pennock answered and informed him that Sheila had been at the dressmaker’s all afternoon and was just returned, so dead that Pennock had made her take a nap. She shouldn’t be disturbed till she woke, no, not for a dozen Winfields, especially as she had an evening rehearsal.
Winfield returned to her hotel and hung about like a process-server. He waited in the lobby, reading the evening papers, one after another, from “ears” to tail. He telephoned up to Pennock till she forbade the operator to ring the bell again.
The big fellow was almost hysterical when a hall-boy called him to the telephone-booth. He heard Sheila’s voice. She was fairly squealing with delight at his presence. Instantly chaos became a fresh young world, all Eden.
Sheila had just learned of Winfield’s arrival. She promised to be down as soon as she had scrubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She invited him to take her to dinner at Claremont before she went back to “the morgue,” as she called the theater—and meant it, for she was fagged out. Everything was wrong with the play, the cast, and, worst of all, with her costumes.
There was further tantalism for Bret in the greeting in the hotel lobby. A formal hand-clasp and a more ardent eye-clasp were all they dared venture. The long bright summer evening made it impossible to steal kisses in the taxicab, except a few snapshots caught as they ran under the elevated road. But they held hands and wrung fingers and talked rapturous nonsense.
The view of the Hudson was supremely beautiful from the restaurant piazza, until Reben arrived with his old Diana Rhys and the two of them filled the landscape like another Storm King and Dunderberg.
Mrs. Rhys had for some time resented Reben’s interest in Sheila and had made life infernal for him. She began on him at the table. He was furious with humiliation and swarthier with jealousy of the unknown occupant of the chair opposite Sheila.
Sheila explained to Winfield in hasty asides that she was in hot water. Reben did not like to have her appear in public places at all, and then only with the strictest chaperonage.
Winfield sniffed at such Puritanism from him.
“It isn’t that, honey,” Sheila said, “it’s business. He says that actresses, of all people, should lead secluded lives because—who wants to pay two dollars to see a woman who can be seen all over town for nothing? He’s planning a regular convent life for me, and he’s shutting down on all the personal publicity. I’m glad of it—for I really belong to you.